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Kidspeak 2006
Jan. 4th, 2006 08:36 pmIn the post-WWII years, when jazz and swing were making way for R&B and Rock & Roll in popular music, quite a few scribes noticed that there was a linguistic break between the generations. I believe it was the musical "Bye Bye Birdie" which bemoaned:
I knew full well that this phenomenon didn't start then, and it certainly wasn't going to stop with my generation. Just as I was hitting real adulthood, Frank Zappa had his only Top 40 hit as he turned his daughter Moon Unit loose on a microphone for the song "Valley Girl".
Sure enough, Alyssa (age 11) is now starting to speak with a lilt and an uptick, and is using cliches which I hadn't heard before now. This is more than simple repetition of catch-phrases from TV shows, but it is repetition.
Lots of repetition.
Her current phrase, usable for all occasions, is:
This phrase (or sentence, I suppose) is generally spoken in earnest, but it can apply to the West Virginia mining disaster, her sister's lack of clue, finding a piece of laundry on the floor, or just about anything else that happens across her consciousness.
She can get over this at any time, as far as I'm concerned.
What are we going to do about the younger generation?
How will we ever communicate without communication?
I knew full well that this phenomenon didn't start then, and it certainly wasn't going to stop with my generation. Just as I was hitting real adulthood, Frank Zappa had his only Top 40 hit as he turned his daughter Moon Unit loose on a microphone for the song "Valley Girl".
Sure enough, Alyssa (age 11) is now starting to speak with a lilt and an uptick, and is using cliches which I hadn't heard before now. This is more than simple repetition of catch-phrases from TV shows, but it is repetition.
Lots of repetition.
Her current phrase, usable for all occasions, is:
That's so sad!
This phrase (or sentence, I suppose) is generally spoken in earnest, but it can apply to the West Virginia mining disaster, her sister's lack of clue, finding a piece of laundry on the floor, or just about anything else that happens across her consciousness.
She can get over this at any time, as far as I'm concerned.
